Jimmy Michie

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Jimmy Michie
birthday 4th August 1971 (age 49)
nationality EnglandEngland England
professional 1991-2011
Prize money £ 359,355
Highest break 132
Century Breaks 23
Main tour successes
World championships -
Ranking tournament victories -
Minor tournament victories -
World rankings
Highest WRL place 41 ( 2000/01 )

Jimmy Michie (born August 4, 1971 ) is an English snooker player from West Yorkshire . From 1991 to 2011 he was active on the professional tour for 20 years .

Career

Beginnings and advancement

At the age of 17, Jimmy Michie first took part in a WPBSA qualifying tournament to gain access to the professional tournaments. He failed in the second round to Euan Henderson . A second attempt the following year was also unsuccessful. But from 1991 the tournaments were released for everyone and he took part in the preliminary round tournaments with sometimes several hundred players. His first major success in the 1991/92 season was reaching the Round of 32 at the Benson & Hedges Satellite Championship . It was a tournament without the top players and without any world ranking points , but at least it defeated players like Anthony Davies and Cliff Thorburn , then number 36 in the world. In ranked tournaments he reached the last 96 round twice at the Asian Open and the Strachan Open. And at the Welsh Open he made it into the main tournament of the last 64 for the first time. At the World Cup , he made it into at least the best-of-19 rounds . Otherwise he did not get past the 3rd round and so he began his professional career in 132nd place on the ranking list. In his second year he reached the last 64 and one more time the last 96 at the Welsh Open and the British Open . But he made the breakthrough in the third year 1993/94. After the round of 64 at the European Open , he reached the round of 32 at the Thailand Open in Bangkok, having previously defeated the number 24 Mark Bennett . In 3 tournaments, including the World Championship , he was among the last 96 and improved to 76th place in the ranking at the end of the season.

In 1994/95 he set a new personal best early in the season. At the Grand Prix he defeated the 11th in the world rankings Nigel Bond in the first main round , then reached the second round and defeated there with the world rankings 10. Peter Ebdon another top player. He lost his first quarterfinals just 4: 5 against Joe Swail . This was followed by several first round defeats and only towards the end of the season did he get into the third round twice, but no longer in a main tournament. That's why he missed a bigger leap forward. The following year, too, he initially struggled and only came back to the bottom 64 at the UK Championship in 1995. He succeeded again at the British Open . Only in the last and most important tournament, the World Cup , was he able to save the season. For the third time he was in the last 64, he defeated Dave Finbow and then the number 17 in the world Andy Hicks with 10: 6. This was the first and only time he made it to the World Cup finals at the Crucible Theater . He had a stretch limousine drive him up to his first match in front of the famous venue . He played against the world number five James Wattana up to 5: 5 at eye level, then the Thai won the upper hand, Michie was able to reduce it from 6: 9 to 8: 9 before the 18th frame brought the defeat. For the first time he was among the top 64 in the world, which was important because in the following season the number of players who were allowed to compete in the major tournaments was to be limited and only the top 64 were automatically eligible. In the 1996/97 season , however, he started again with many initial defeats. It was only in the second half of the season at the Thailand Open and the British Open that he came under the bottom 32 - including a 5-4 win over Joe Swail. At the World Cup , he narrowly defeated Paul Davis 10: 9 and then just as narrowly missed the Crucible entry with 9:10 against Mick Price . With 55th place, he reached a new top position in the world rankings.

The seventh year as a professional was a big setback. He lost in all tournaments in the first round and fell back far behind. In the 1998/99 season he scored two more victories at the start of the Grand Prix and was already among the bottom 32 at the Irish Open , where he defeated world number three Ronnie O'Sullivan 5: 4. At the British Open 1999 he succeeded after beating the world rankings 10. Tony Drago had prevailed in the round of 16, the second victory over O'Sullivan. With a 5: 4 over number 6 in the world John Parrott , he finally reached his first semi-final. But he clearly missed the final with 1: 6 against Anthony Hamilton . Even the first round defeat at the World Cup did not change the fact that things were clearly looking up again. By the end of 1999 he confirmed his good form and he reached at least the bottom 64 in all ranking tournaments. At the UK Championship and in early 2000 at the Welsh Open , he came under the bottom 32 and he also managed a revenge win against Anthony Hamilton, who was ranked 10 in the world rankings had reached the peak of his career. Although Mitchie was eliminated four times in round 1, he also achieved his best position after the season with place 41.

In the top 64 for many years

In the 2000/01 season he continued to have good results, but only in the UK Championship did he make it to the bottom 32. At the World Championship he played for the Crucible one more time, but lost against Nigel Bond with 6 : 10. The following year, a fate struck him that had already led some well-known professionals to a career break: he lost his cue, his car with his familiar toy was stolen from him. With a replacement queue he only won 3 matches in the season, but since he only entered the tournaments in the higher rounds due to the tournament mode, he was still able to stay in the top 64. He started the 2002/03 season with great success at the LG Cup . He came into the main tournament, defeated the world number 11 there. Mark King and after victories over the two Northern Irishmen Patrick Wallace and Gerard Greene , he was in a semi-finals for the second time in his career. With a clear defeat with 2: 6 against Chris Small he lost his final chance again. At the British Open , he defeated Joe Swail, another top 16 player, and made it to the round of 16. Then he lost the opening game one more time in the last four tournaments. The following year, the round of 32 at the European Open , in which he lost his only game against Stephen Hendry 5-1, was his greatest success. The same result was the highlight of the season at the 2004 UK Championship . At the China Open 2005 he failed a round earlier against the wildcard player Habib Subah . In 2005/06 he was the only tournament to achieve a better result than the round of 64 at the China Open. Five years in a row, he finished the season between 55th and 61st place during this time and was thus always relatively close to qualifying for the Main tour.

In the 2006/07 season the Englishman did not achieve outstanding results either, but he made it into the second and twice into the third round of the tournament. Since the number of tournaments continued to decline in this time of crisis in snooker, these results were all the more valuable and it once again climbed into the top 48, where it was also able to stay in the following season. At the 2008 Grand Prix he once again made it into the bottom 32 and three more times he reached the round of 48. In the following year, however, he was eliminated in round 1 of 4 of only 6 ranking tournaments. With victories at the UK Championship and the World Cup , where he lost the decisive game for the finals for the third time, he at least saved his top 64 place. The 2010/11 season brought a big turnaround in snooker with new tournaments and the Players Tour Championship . In this series of small tournaments he was quite successful, several times he reached the 2nd or 3rd round and at the Ruhr Championship in Hamm , Westphalia , he reached the second round. But these tournaments did little for the world rankings. Also making it into the last 32 at the World Open hardly paid off. He lost his opening matches at the major ranked tournaments. His career came to an inglorious end in January 2011. At the 2011 snooker shoot-out in Blackpool , he lost in the first round to Scotsman Marcus Campbell , before a suspicious number of bets on his defeat had been made. In 1998 there were already allegations of match fixing in his match against Mark Gray at the British Open , but these had no consequences. But this time he did not wait for the investigation by the World Snooker Association, he ended his career prematurely and did not appear in the last three tournaments. This ended his time as a professional snooker at the age of 40 after 20 years of uninterrupted membership.

Even if no confirmation of betting manipulation by him was found again, Jimmy Michie had to go to jail some time later. In 2016 he was sentenced to 3 years and 4 months in prison because he had been involved in importing counterfeit potency drugs from Asia as a professional in recent years.

successes

Ranking tournaments:

Other professional tournaments:

swell

  1. ↑ a b c Profile of Jimmy Michie on CueTracker (as of June 23, 2018)
  2. ↑ Statement: Jimmy Michie v Marcus Campbell. WPBSA , archived from the original on February 1, 2011 ; accessed on June 23, 2018 (English).
  3. ↑ Snooker: Michie mugs O'Sullivan. The Independent , April 9, 1999, accessed June 23, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Betting investigation clears Jimmy Michie and Marcus Campbell. The Guardian , September 14, 2011, accessed June 23, 2018 .
  5. ↑ John Blow: Ex-snooker star jailed for part in an international fake Viagra scheme. Yorkshire Evening Post, June 11, 2016, accessed June 23, 2018 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Michie, Jimmy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English snooker player
DATE OF BIRTH 4th August 1971